Part 55 (1/2)

”The way you lose a tail is you do something unexpected where the tail can't follow you,”

she said. ”Say there's a cab, but just the one. You grab it and have him take you someplace fast, all right? Only not to the address I'm going to give you. Someplace else.” He nodded.

”I thought maybe you were going to say there's got to be a thousand cabbies, and they can't talk to them all. Only every cab's got a terminal in it, and it records when fares get picked up, and where they're going. Like if they know you caught the cab at eleven oh two, all they've got to do is check cabs that picked up somebody right about then. It's maybe a dozen cabs, then they can find out where you went.”

”I understand,” he said.

”Or maybe you go to the John. He's not going to come in the John with you because you'd get too good a look at him. He'll wait outside. Well, if it's got two doors you duck in one and out the other. Or climb out the window, if there's a window. It gets you ten or fifteen minutes to get away.””Okay,” he said.

She had taken a pen and a small notebook from her purse; she scribbled in it, tore out the page, and handed it to him. ”Where we're going to meet,” she said. ”Don't look at it till you're almost there.” He was too stunned to say anything. ”You're finished.”

He managed to say, ”Yes, but you're not.”

”I'm awfully nervous, and when I'm nervous I don't eat a lot. I look at you and see the two dots, and I know they're seeing what you do, your sausages or whatever. Let's go.”

Out on the street again, in the cutting wind, she squeezed his hand. ”See that subway entrance up ahead? Maybe you can see the escalator through the gla.s.s.”

”Yes,” he said. ”We're going to walk right toward it. When we get there, I'll go in and down.

You keep walking.”

He did, badly tempted to watch as the moving steps carried her away but staring resolutely ahead.

Soon traffic thinned, and the sidewalks grew dirtier. The vehicles filling every parking s.p.a.ce were older and shabbier. He went into a corner store then and asked the middle-aged black man behind the counter for a package of gum.

”This a bad neighborhood?”

The counterman did not smile. ”It's not good.”

”I heard it was really bad,” Jay said. ”This doesn't look so bad.”

The counterman shrugged. ”One and a quarter for that.” Jay gave him a hundred. ”Where would it be worse?”

”Don't know.” The counterman held Jay's hundred up to the light and fingered the paper.

”You pus.h.i.+n' queer? I knows what you looks like now.”

”Keep the change,” Jay said. The counterman stared. ”Where does it get really bad?

Dangerous.”

For a second or two, the counterman hesitated. Then he said, ”Just keep on north, maybe six blocks?” Jay nodded.

”Then you turns east. Three blocks. Or fo'. That's 'bout as bad as anythin' gits.”

”Thanks.” Jay opened the gum and offered a stick to the counterman. The counterman shook his head. ”Gits on my dentures. You goin' up there where I told you?”

He did, and once there he stopped and studied the shabby buildings as though searching for a street number. Two white men-the only other whites in sight-were following him, one behind him with a brown attache case, the other on the opposite side of the street. Their hats and topcoats looked crisp and new, and they stood out in that neighborhood like two candy bars in a brushpile. He turned down an alley, ran, then halted abruptly where a rusted-out water heater leaned against a dozen rolls of discarded carpet.

Often he had waited immobile for an hour or more until a wary deer ventured within range of his bow. He waited so now, motionless in the wind and the blowing snow, half concealed by the hot-water tank and a roll of carpet, a sleeve breaking the outline of his face; and the men he had seen in the street pa.s.sed him without a glance, walking purposefully up the alley. Where it met the next street they stopped and talked for a moment or two; then the attache case wasopened, and they appeared to consult an instrument of some kind. They reentered the alley.

He rose and ran-down that alley, across the street and into the next, down another street, a narrow and dirty street on which half or more of the parked cars had been stripped. When he stopped at last, sweating despite the cold, he got out Hayfa Was.h.i.+ngton's card and tore it in two.

Threadlike wires and their parent microchips bound the halves together still.

He dropped both halves down a sewer grating, pulled off his reversible coat, turned it green-side-out and put it back on, then unb.u.t.toned his hunting coat as well and transferred the hunting knife his father had given him one Christmas to a pocket of the now-green raincoat, sheath and all.

An hour later-long after he had lost count of alleys and wretched streets-he heard running feet behind him, whirled, and met his attacker with the best flying tackle he could muster. He had not fought another human being since boyhood; he fought now as the bobcat had fought him, with the furious strength of desperation, gouging and biting and twice pounding the other's head against the dirty concrete. He heard the bottle that had been the other's weapon break, and felt the heat of the blood streaming from his ear and scalp, and by an immense effort of will stopped the point of the old hunting knife short of the other's right eye.

The other's struggled ended. ”Don' do that, man! You don' want to make me blind.”

”Give up?”

”Yeah, man. I give up.” The jagged weapon the bottle had become clinked on the pavement.

”How much did you think I'd have on me?”

”Man, that don't matter!”

”Yes, it does. How much?”

”Forty. Fifty. Maybe credit cards, man, you know.”

”All right.” The point of the knife moved a centimeter closer. ”I want you to do something for me. I want you to work. If you'll do it, I'll pay you a hundred and send you away. If you won't, you'll never get up. Which is it?”

”I'll do it, man.” The other at least sounded sincere. ”I'll do whatever you says.”

”Good.” Jay rose and dropped the knife back into his pocket. ”Maybe you can pull me down. I don't know, but maybe you can. Whenever you want to try ...” He shrugged.

”You bleedin', man.”

”I know. It will stop, or I think it will.” Jay got out a hundred. ”You see this? It'll be all yours.” He tore it in two and gave half to the other. ”You get the other half when you've done what I'm hiring you to do.” ”Okay if I gets up, man?”

Jay nodded, and the other got slowly to his feet. His Jeens and plastic jacket were old and cracked, his Capribuk athletic shoes nearly new.

”Listen carefully. If you don't do exactly what I tell you, our deal is off. I'm going to give you a piece of paper with an address on it.” The other gave no indication that he had heard. ”I want you to read that address, but I don't want you to tell me what it is. Don't say it, and don't let me see the paper.”

”What is this s.h.i.+t, man?” ”Do you watch the news?”

”I got no time for that s.h.i.+t, man. I listens to music.”

For two or three seconds Jay stared at the blank screen on the other's forehead, recalling that his own was-or had been-equally blank. ”There's no point in explaining. Do you understand what you've got to do?”

”Look at the address. Not tell you. Not let you look, even. You want me to tear it up?”

Jay shook his head. ”I want you to keep it, and I want you to take me there. If we have to spend money to get there, I'll pay.”

Reluctantly, the other nodded.

”When we get there, you give me the paper so I can see you took me to the right place. When you do, I'll give you the other half of that hundred and you can go.”